John W. James

Where were you when I needed you?

The saddest question we ever hear is, "Where were you when I needed you?"

That's what people ask when they find out what we do in helping grievers. We're presenting helpful and accurate information on this site, at the time you need it most, with the hope that you'll never need to ask that question.

It's an honor and a sad privilege to be addressing you, knowing that each of you has recently experienced the death of someone important to you. We also know some of you are reading this because of your care and concern for someone who is confronted by the death of someone important in their life.

We bring our personal experience in dealing with the deaths of people who were important to us, and our professional know-how in helping grievers for more than 30 years. We'll help you distinguish between the "raw grief" that is your normal and natural reaction to the death, and the equally normal "unresolved grief" that relates to the unfinished emotions that are part of the physical ending of all relationships.

A basic reality for most grieving people is difficulty concentrating or focusing. With that in mind, we asked Tributes.com to print our articles in a large type font to make them easier to read. Sharing our concern for grieving people, they agreed.

Articles & Media

The 4th of July—Another Reminder of Those Who Are No Longer Here

by Russell Friedman & John W. James of The Grief Recovery Institute

The common bond that connects all holiday celebrations is that they tend to be family-oriented events. Whether the holiday commemorates religious events, changes in the seasons, or our country’s independence from Britain, we gather in our family clans to honor the day, and by extension, our personal and social connections.

Generally speaking, that’s good for everyone, except for those attending such an event for the first time after the death of someone meaningful to them. Even attending another family’s barbeque, your awareness of who isn’t there with you can create a great deal of emotion in you.

The emotional reaction may be true for more than the first year after the loss. In the event that someone important to you died around the time of a particular holiday, you may have emotions around that time for many years to come. That is normal since the holiday is such a massive stimulus to remind you of who’s missing.

With that in mind, we’ve put together some helpful tips to guide you, or anyone you know, in dealing with the emotions that often arise during any holiday.

Don’t Isolate Yourself. It’s normal and natural to feel lost and alone—but Don’t Isolate—even if you have to force yourself to be with people and participate in normal activities.

Don’t misuse food or alcohol to cover-up or push down your feelings. As children,when we’re sad about something, we’re often told “Don’t Feel Bad, here have a cookie, you’ll feel better.” The cookie doesn’t make the child feel better, it makes the child feel different, and the real cause of the sadness is not discussed. When we get older, alcohol and drugs are often used for the same wrong reason—to mask feelings of sadness.

Talk about your feelings, but don’t expect a quick fix. It’s essential to have someone you trust to talk about your memories and the feelings they evoke. Ask your friend to just listen to you, and not try to fix you. You’re sad, not broken, you just need to be heard.

While it’s important to talk about your feelings, don’t dwell on them. Telling the same sad story over and over is not helpful—in fact, it re-establishes your relationship to your pain. Better to just make a simple statement of how you feel in the moment, for example: “I just had a sad feeling of missing him.

Time doesn’t heal—actions do. The myth that time heals a broken heart is just that, a myth. Time can’t heal a broken heart any more than air can jump into a flat tire. Time just goes by. It’s the actions you take within time that can help you feel better.

Maintain your normal routines. The change from being in a relationship to being alone is an enormous adjustment. It’s never a good idea to add a host of other changes while you’re trying to adapt to the end of the relationship.

Go through the pain, not under, over, or around it. It’s very tempting to try to avoid the pain associated with a broken heart. But it’s also a very bad idea. Whenever you skirt the pain, all you’re doing is pushing it away temporarily. It will always come back to haunt you.

Find effective guidance. While the grief of a broken heart is the normal reaction to the death of someone important to you, it’s very helpful to find effective tools to help you discover and complete everything that was left emotionally incomplete by the death. The Grief Recovery Handbook and When Children Grieve are excellent resources for effective guidance. They feature the principles and actions of The Grief Recovery Method. They are available in most libraries and bookstores, or here on www.Tributes.com